NGWave Audio/Sound/MP3 Editor: Editing Basics Part II

This is a continuation of our beginner's tutorial to digital audio editing.

Visual Representation

Imagine if we draw out these numbers on your computer screen. Louder sounds will look larger than smaller sounds. Imagine even further if you could "zoom in" on the sound -- viewing more detail, and less data. This is the heart of a sound editing application -- the ability to show the audio in a visual manner that makes sense to the user.


Waveform Display @ 64:1 Zoom

NGWave attempts to make the wave-form look as true as possible. Lots of coding time went behind our wave-form display technologies, and we hope to have achieved a really nice effect. Other editors offer a very limited view -- some require specific zoom ratios, or don't allow as much detail. NGWave lets you zoom to any integral zoom ratio.


Waveform Display @ 1:1 Zoom

A one to one, or 1:1, zoom ratio means that each pixel represents exactly one audio sample. This way you can see every audio sample on its own. Zooming out increases the number of samples that make up each pixel, allowing you to view more data, with less detail.

Trying it Out

The best way to learn to understand a wave-form display is to try it out. If you have some sound files, open one up in NGWave. Zoom in and out on the wave-form, and play the audio back using the audio controls toward the bottom of the window.

Once you get the feel for the visual representation, the rest is quite easy!

Actually Editing Sound

Once you understand the idea of visualizing your audio, you can do things like:

• Select a portion of audio with your mouse (just like you might do with text)
• Perform an operation on the selection
• Delete the selection
• Copy, Cut, and Paste the selection

Adding to the standard Copy/Paste, sound editors usually have an additional Paste mode: Paste Mix. This Mixes the sound on the clipboard with the destination sound.

NGWave lets you "nudge" the selection in the Paste Mix dialog, so you can preview and adjust until you're pasting exactly where you wanted to: where it sounds the best. You can also adjust the volume level of the pasted audio.

Getting Started

You can download a FREE Evaulation version of NGWave by visiting our Downloads page. While the Save feature is disabled in the Evaluation, you can try out all of the above concepts. If you like what you see, you can Buy NGWave for only $39.95.

Once you get the hang of sound editing on the PC, you can read about NGWave's features to see what NGWave offers that other editors don't.

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